


Also Hawkeye

by katjh



Category: Hawkeye (Comics), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-25
Updated: 2013-04-25
Packaged: 2017-12-09 12:08:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/774020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katjh/pseuds/katjh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kate Bishop is Hawkeye. Clint Barton is also Hawkeye.</p>
<p>An AU in which Kate Bishop is an Avenger and mentor to Clint. So basically swapping Kate and Clint in Marvel canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Also Hawkeye

  Kate introduces him as also Hawkeye. Natasha and Coulson already know him, thanks to his extra-curriculars (that is, having a record and associating with Kate Bishop), but the rest of the Avengers look from him to Kate and back.

“You mean there's another one of you crazy people with a bow?” Stark says at last. “What's his story, then? You took him to your archery range and taught him to shoot?”

Clint laughs. “I grew up in a circus as a master marksman,” he says.

“Bullshit,” says Stark, but he claps his hand on Clint's shoulder anyway and goes on, “Do you use ridiculous arrows too?”

 

Kate looks happy that the team seems to be accepting him. Clint finds her near the end of the day, after he's spent time with all of the Avengers (except Natasha, who's promising to do something awesome with him later, which probably means something Kate would rather he not do). She's sitting on the couch in the common room Tony's designed, running her finger along the edge of an arrowhead.

“Why'd you bring me here?” Clint asks, perching on the edge of the couch arm. The room's just darkening with sunset. “Like, I get that they're your team and you're gonna be hanging out with them more, but s'not like I will.”

Kate half-shrugs. She won't look at Clint.

“Hawkeye,” he says, and that's just not fair because he sounds like her mother.

She chucks the arrowhead at the wall and it buries itself in there. “I want you to see what you could have,” she tells him. “I know you've been trying to set things right, but you're still sticking around your brother and he's bad news, Clint. He's gonna drag you down.”

Clint turns away. “He kept me safe. He... He was the one who always looked out for me. The only one. He didn't leave me at the orphanage and he didn't abandon me when I left the circus. He's my _brother_ , Kate.”

She knows all of this, but even Hawkeyes have blind spots. Hers is for Clint, and his is for Barney, who's getting into even more trouble with the law, who's going to come to Clint for help when his life's hanging by a thread, and Clint's going to get pulled into the mess and not ask for anyone else to come work it out. Kate swallows hard. She's had dreams sometimes of being called into the morgue to identify Clint's body. Barney's is never there, and the medical examiner says they can't reach Barney Barton, and Kate's name is next on his emergency contact list, and in six months Barney's gonna pop up again, she knows it, when the danger's finally gone.

“Hawkeye,” she says.

He smiles at her, and she remembers he's really just a kid still. He's had a rough life, but he's young and somehow still has that kid-like innocence despite the fact that at least four people in his life have tried to kill him. “Barney's all I have left,” he says.

The words _I'm always here for you_ die in her throat. Clint is already out of the room, leaving Kate behind. He's still young, she tells herself.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a bit of an idea I had. I'm thinking I could maybe turn this into a series or something, if anyone wants.


End file.
